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COMPANY NEWS
Kal Tire Maple Programme Launched in UK and Europe
As reported in Issue 2019/4 of Retreading Business, the Canadian- owned OTR retreader Kal Tire has now launched its Maple Programme, designed to incentivise and rate retread-friendly OTR fleets, in both its pilot markets, namely Chile and the United Kingdom. The official UK launch was held as part of a press open day event hosted in February at Kal Tire’s UK
studies into the environmental benefits for OTR sizes above 25”.
K al Tire’s Carbon Calculator was accredited in June 2019.
“The Maple Programme makes Kal Tire the only OTR tyre and service provider that can pass on accredited environmental savings,” explained Rob Meehan, the Marketing Manager for K al Tire’s Mining Tire Group. “Our retread customers are offered a Maple Rating out of 5 based on the various tonnages of retreaded tyres they buy. The accredited savings they make can be used as part of the customers’ own stakeholder environmental reports and can be reported on a monthly basis if desired. The accreditation is carried out by SCS Global, the ISO accredited international company.” On accreditation of the Maple programme, a pilot scheme was initially introduced in Chile in which four mining companies took part. An example is the El Abra mine, which lowered its CO2 emissions by as much as 35% during the programme. The company reused 31 mining tyres, significantly reducing tyre waste and removing the need to buy a total of 26 new tyres.
During our recent visit to Kal Tire’s Chilean site near Antofagasta, covered elsewhere in this issue of Retreading Business, we quizzed K al Tire Chile’s General Manager Carlos Zuñiga Fuentes about the development of the pilot programme. In Chile the Maple ratings are calculated based on the total tonnage of the heavy mining tyres sent for retreading, with the ratings being scaled on 5% increments, so if 25% of a mine’s total tonnage consists of retreads, the mine would earn a 5-star rating. According to Zuñiga six companies are now enrolled in the regular
Rob Meehan
According to Rob Meehan, the UK and European Maple Programme will follow the same principal as in
larger UK quarries are taking it on board. We are able to offer a range of carbon savings by size, giving
headquarters in Alfreton, Derbyshire.
The Maple Programme is essentially an incentive-based scheme for rewarding Kal Tire customers for choosing the company’s premium retreaded product instead of purchasing new tyres. It has been launched off the back of Kal Tire’s newly-accredited Carbon Calculator, which was developed over a two- year period between 2017-19 and which sets out to identify exact carbon reduction figures for its own retread product against its new equivalent adapted for all the Group’s retread plants. The tool was developed due to the fact that, although the environmental benefits
Chile, awarding customers for the positive environmental effect of using a Kal Tire retread. The award programme is open to customers with a fleet of 20+ trucks, awarded across all sites at customer level. Due to the totally
different make-up of the customer base in the UK, the application of the Maple leaf scale is handled differently to Chile and is dependent on the percentage of the total fleet running on Kal Tire’s retread product – so 5-9% is one Maple, 10-19% two Maples, 20- 29% three Maples, 30- 39% four Maples and 40% and over is five Maples.
Says Meehan; “In the UK, the Maple Programme was made available as of November and already some of the
customers Qrcode links so they can download their certificates of CO2 savings. We are finding that major national accounts are showing considerable interest in the scheme.”
of retreading are obvious to many, the actual benefits have never been quantified and proven before. There have also been no publicly available
programme with a further three enrolled in a subsidiar y programme designed for occasional customers who only buy on an ad hoc basis.
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